IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 20966, 4 March 1930, Page 2

IN TOUCH WITH NATURE

TUIS AND MOTHS. By J. Drummond, F.L.S., F.Z.S. Visiting a bay in Manukau Harbour, near the Heads, last month, Mr G. J. Garland, M.L.C., was charmed to hear the bell-like notes of his old friend, the tui. “ Fifty years ago,” he writes, “ that place was covered with native bush, and tuis were plentiful. Now it is mostly in grass and shelter plantations and flax, which has-been' planted in parts; but the tui has come back to the old home of its ancestors. Two of the tuis I saw were working hard on flax blossom, extracting honey with their brushy tongues. Closer observation showed that they were parents. They flew to a thicket not far away and returned to the flax-bushes, going to and fro for about an hour. Then all was quiet until the male rang out his notes, and visits were made to the flax-bushes again, and so it went on. Curious to discover what was taking place, for I was sure that two other tuis I had seen near the thicket were the young of_ the others, I hid unnoticed in the thicket. I was rewarded by seeing the female feed one of the young, just as we see the song-thrush, the blackbird, the black-capped tern, the saddle-hacked gull, and other birds feed their young. The juvenile tui was fully-fledged, glossy black, but lacked the activity that characterised the adults. I hoped to see the male feed the young, but was disappointed. I do not know if male tuis share with females the work of feeding their young. While the female was busy with another member of her family, which I could not see, but could distinctly hear, the male sat on a high branch, uttering his mellow notes. I am inclined to think that the females alone feed the j’oung.”

No other observers seem to have noted male tuis feeding the young, Mr H. Guthrie-Smith, who has watched many tuis on their nests, does not record their habits in this respect. He has found young tuis very wild and restless, readily quitting the nest when disturbed, a movement abetted and encouraged by the adults. On one occasion, in the third week of November, he had under observation a female sitting in her nest. She was sitting hard. The eggs probably were just hatching. He boiled bis billy and lunched not tar from the tree, and satisfied Ipmself that neither parent was bringing in supplies. On December II the young had gone. Chips of broken shell, the soiled condition of the nest, and its tilt, told of a brood safely reared. Early in December, Mr , Guthrie-Smith knew of five or six nests on his station, Tutira, Hawke's Bay. Four of. them were in one patch of bush about two acres in area. He has seen the tui feed “ her ” nestlings on fuchsia berries and other berries, and supplies gathered from matipo trees near a nest.

Ho found a nest in a tree on the bed of a river. From above, on the steep slopes of a hill, he could see and hear the female singing on her eggs. Describing this experience, he writes: “Never before had I known any species sing on the nest. This tui’s ‘ o-coc-coc-coe-coc,' each syllable rapidly enunciated, produced a distant and peculiar note impossible to forget or to confuse with any other note. When her mate was expected—presumably it was the female—she seemed to raise herself on the_ nest and stretch forth her neck as if in expectation of food. We were close to her, yet she sang as if the world was too full of ecstasy of life for wrong and rapine to exist. The sun was shining above the flowing river; the leaves were green and of every shade qnd shape; and her great love had cast out fear. Much of the tui’s singing we cannot hear. The notes are too high, I suppose, for our human oars, for I have often watched a tui’s throat from a distance of a few yards swelling with song completely inaudible.”

A _ peculiar dark mahogany-brown or reddish insect, with a conspicuous curved process springing from the side of its head, sent by Mrs M. S. Cawkwell, Marohemo, Maungaturoto, some 96 miles north of Auckland city, is a Sphinx moth, or hawk-moth in its chrysalis' stage, the last stage before it becomes a very handsome perfect insect bearing grey wings, its body clothed in grey, but striped on the sides' with rose colour, black, and white. The large curved process in the chrysalis develops, in the perfect moth, into a prodigious proboscis. Mrs Cawkwell seems to have noticed the insect as a caterpillar, before it advanced to the chrysalis stage. She found it amongst the convolvulus, where there were many other caterpillars of the same species. This is where they may be looked for, ns Sphinx caterpillars feed on convolvulus leaves. Mrs Cawkwell reports that they also eat the leaves of the cabbage.

Caterpillars of this great group of moths, tlie Sphingidaj, often differ in colour while belonging to the same species. This is so with the present species. Sphinx convolvuli. The caterpillars, up to three inches and a-half long, may be bright green, with white breathing holes and yellow stripes, or they may be yellowbrown with jet black breathing holes and brown stripes. There are not the same marked differences in members of the ‘species in their chrysalis and perfect stages. Whether green or brown, the caterpillars always have a common ornament. This is a conspicuous horn, dai’k red, tipped with black, carried proudly and menacingly, but, apparently, harmlessly, at the tail end of the body.

The caterpillars, according to Mr G. V. Hudson’s observations, usually bury themselves in the ground when, about the middle or end of February, they feel the impulse that will result in the change from caterpillar to chrysalis. They remain in the chrysalis stage until the following summer, springing into the still higher life of perfect iusecthood in November and December, They are creatures of the_ dusk. They love the quiet,’ mysterious time when the sweet presence of the night begins to supplant the manifold activities of the day. Although they fly with astonishing swiftness, they poise in the air above flowers, hover about them, and suck their nectar through the wonderful proboscides.

So widely is Sphinx convolvuli distributed over the wide world, reaching to the uttermost ends of the earth, that it may be termed a cosmopolitan. Europe, Asia, Africa, Australia, New Zealand, the countless islands of the Pacific, and, above all, America are the home of this remarkable species of moth. Members of the species have been found far out at r WWv his intimate knowledge of Row Zealand’s moths and butterflies, Mr Hudson regards the species as ap immigrant to this Dominion, not as a native. In any case, it has now an important position amongst Aew insects. It is often seen in the northern parts of the Aorth Island, less often south of a line from Napier to New Plymouth, and only occasionally in the South Island. Blenheim, Nelson, Hokitika and Christchurch seem to be tlie only South Island places in which it has been recorded. Hawk-moths are called hawk-moths because they fly like hawks. They are called Sphinx because, in other countries some of then- caterpillars, when at rest’ have a fancied resemblance to the Sphinx The deaths head moth of the Old Country is a notorious member of the family.

keflj Smith of Tauranga, son of Chief remiti gave Mrs Cawkwell several vegetable caterpillars, transformed from insects into plants He told her that the Maoris always found a few of these catei pillars alive, before the transformation took place amongst their kumara plants, which they 4s the kumara belongs to the convolvulus family Mrs Cawkwell asks if the vegetable caterpifiar is identical with tlie caterpillar of Sphinx convolvuli. Ihe answer is that it is not. The fungus that deposits its spores m caterpillars usually selects the caterpillars of a moth called Porina pignata. These are subterranean caterpillars, which feed on the roots of treeicrns alK l of other plants. They are slightly more than two inches and throequarters long, cylindrical, and of almost uniform thickness.

-New Zealand has 19 species of Porina. Most, perhaps nil, are attacked by this extraordinary fungus. Their bodies are completely possessed by it. The fun-ms usually attacks a caterpillar in the head or in the back of the neck. ft ki|| s u le caterpillar u. the ground, transforms it into a hard, vegetable substance, and in Jhat way preserves it in its original shape. 'J he fimgus then sends a stem up out of the transformed caterpillar through the soil to a height of several inches.